Colorado River Basin Study - Part 1

The Basin Study (BS) is asserted to be the most comprehensive study of future supply and demand conditions facing the seven Colorado River Basin States

Reading the 400-page Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) report titled Moving Forward 2015 was, needless to say, a demanding and sometimes sleep-inducing activity. Why I do these things seems a mystery at times, but basically it has to do with my intense interest in water and our area’s future. Having attended many water meetings and events along with reading many water reports and books over the past nine years, I’ve learned that water is an incredibly complex “subject” but a simple “substance” which life cannot do without. Water has only three atoms (two hydrogen and one oxygen) while other substances may have many more. However, its molecular simplicity belies its amazing properties – the outcome of the polarity that results from those three little atoms – properties that we generally take for granted in our lives.

Given the complexity of the report, I’ve divided my summary information into three parts covering: M&I water (Municipal & Industrial), agricultural water and environmental/recreation water issues.

BOR’s Moving Forward 2015 report came about as a result of their earlier 2012 Basin Study. The Basin Study (BS) is asserted to be the most comprehensive study of future supply and demand conditions facing the seven Colorado River Basin States. It confirmed serious challenges facing the states that rely on Colorado River (CR) water. The mission of the Moving Forward 2015 (MF) effort was to take the BS projections and build on future considerations and explore the next steps identified in the BS in more detail. This review of the MF report is meant to provide a high-level review of a very detailed document. It is not meant to be an in-depth critique, but I hope will provide some things for citizens to consider as we move into a water future that will be more constrained than ever before.

Forty million people and about 5.5 million acres of farmland depend on water from the CR. Absent future action, imbalances between supply and demand, computed as a 10-year running average, range from no imbalance to 6.8 million acre-feet (MAF) with a median of 3.2 MAF in 2060. An acre-foot is approximately 326,000 gallons. In gallons, that imbalance would be 2.2 trillion at the high end to 1.04 trillion at the low end (not counting the “no imbalance” scenario which seems unlikely). Either way, a lot of water! These projections are the future “without future action.” We’re not doomed but are challenged. Future water supply and demand imbalance scenarios were identified as early as the 1960s and revealed in Reclamation’s own 1975 study, “The Westside Study Report on Critical Water Problems Facing the Eleven Western States.” Apparently, the study sparked much of the work that was started in the 80s, but we have a long way to go and much work ahead to solve the problems.

The earlier BS revealed that “…relative to the other options explored, water use efficiency in the M&I and agricultural sectors as well as water reuse were cost-effective solutions that could be implemented in the near-term.” To further explore this idea, several MF workgroups were created from a variety of entities including federal agencies, state agencies/organizations, municipal agencies/organizations, water/energy providers, federally-recognized tribes, non-governmental organizations, universities and others. The work groups included:

- Municipal and Industrial (M&I) Water Conservation and Reuse Workgroup

- Agricultural Water Conservation, Productivity, and Transfers Workgroup

- Environmental and Recreational Flows Workgroup

With M&I water needs being the driving force behind the current Lake Powell Pipeline Project (LPPP), a plan to bring between 69,000 to 86,000 acre-feet (af) to our county at a cost well in excess of $1 billion without financing costs (2009 figure) (started at approximately $187 million in the mid 90s when the idea was first conceived), perhaps dealing with M&I first makes sense. The MF report does not deal directly with Washington County, other than briefly. However, the lessons learned from the seven major metropolitan areas studied, which included Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake City and Sandy (MWDSLS) and Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District (JVWCD), apply to our area in many ways, and other desert cities studied provide lessons.

Many of the major metropolitan areas studied that currently receive CR water have experienced significant population growth in the past decades. While total M&I water use has generally increased, per capita demand has decreased. Additionally, since 2000, M&I water use, in spite of population increases, has remained stable or even decreased in many of these metropolitan areas. The lesson is that we CAN grow and still save water.

Eleven major opportunities with potential to increase or expand M&I water conservation and reuse were identified in the study:

1. Increase outdoor water use efficiency through technology improvements and behavior change, and increase the adoption of low-water-use landscapes.

2. Increase the end-user understanding of individual, community, and regional water use.

3. Increase the integration of water- and energy-efficiency programs and resource planning.

4. Expand local and state goal-setting and tracking to assist providers in structuring programs.

5. Increase funding for water use efficiency and reuse.

6. Increase integration of water and land use planning.

7. Develop and expand resources to assist water providers in water conservation efforts.

8. Implement measures to reduce system water loss with specific metrics and benchmarking.

9. Increase commercial, institutional, and industrial water use efficiency and reuse through targeted outreach and partnerships.

10. Expand adoption of conservation-oriented rates and incentives.

11. Expand adoption of regulations and ordinances to increase water use efficiency and reuse.

These “opportunities” make it clear that we have our work cut out for us; the gauntlet is down and we are now challenged. We know from the December 2014 and May 2015 Utah legislative water audits that outdoor (and indoor) water use are generally not being measured correctly. Even now homes with large expanses of grass are being built in our area; so behavior changes are far from realized. Our ordinances are weak or non-existent, goal setting is minimal, rates are laughable and commercial, industrial and institutional (CII) usage is a big part of our problem (47% of our water). My May blog provides additional information on our legislature’s 2014 and 2015 water audits (http://www.thespectrum.com/story/issuesofourtimes/2015/05/08/water-audits-and-pipeline-plans-dont-add-up/26988989/).

MF 2015 makes it clear that water conservation measures (metering, billing, public outreach, residential indoor practices, and outdoor landscaping practices) and their implementation vary widely among the municipal providers studied. They also point out that these efforts, if implemented well, can go a long way toward helping meet future demand, delay expensive water projects (Lake Powell Pipeline) and increase water supply reliability. M&I water conservation and reuse can be instrumental in helping reduce the amount of CR water developed in the future. In fact, a study and report done by Western Resource Advocates for our area confirms this. The “Local Waters Alternative to the Lake Powell Pipeline” is available at http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/. At this time, CR basin municipal water providers are planning to use their full allotment of CR water, but will it be available?

The MF report acknowledges that average household outdoor water use can be as high as 60 percent (ours is 61% according to 2013 published 2010 figure – Utah Division of Water Resources) in the Southwest due to the dry climate. Perhaps this highlights the attempt by homeowners and others in the desert to maintain landscaping not in keeping with what the desert can and should support. That said, the report acknowledges, “Even landscaping designed for arid and semiarid climates may require supplemental irrigation. The Basin Study reported that outdoor irrigation demands were projected to increase by approximately 3 to 4 percent per degree Celsius of climate warming (Reclamation, 2012b).” This certainly seems to provide a warning to those who prefer traditional landscaping over desert landscaping that the future will be even more difficult for them to maintain their green grass and high-water plants.

Gallons per capita per day (gpcd) – the amount of M&I water used by residents, businesses, institutions, etc. – in various CR basin metropolitan areas are often difficult to compare due to variables, and the MF report acknowledges this. However, the MF report and most others I’ve reviewed do compare gpcd water usage in various areas. In fact, our Washington County Water Conservancy District’s own Boyle report done in the 90s did just that. The MF report states, “The per capita use was calculated as the sum of all M&I water use in a metropolitan area, excluding SSI use, divided by the total service area population.” Even with the variables, if an area is supporting a given population on a given amount of water, that’s a start. For instance, Albuquerque supports a population of just over 600,000 on approximately 100,000 af of water while we support a population of 150,000 in Washington County on about half that – 47,000 af. Water manager, Ron Thompson, asserts, in the district’s Water Line publication, that he can reliably deliver 105,000 af of water with resources available and planned, even without the LPPP. However, according to Mr. Thompson, it would only serve a population of approximately 280,000 residents (WCWCD Water Line 2011 Special Summer Edition). Obviously there’s a big discrepancy between 100,000 af for 600,000 people versus 105,000 af for 280,000 people. Add to that the fact that the 105,000 af of water is proposed without meaningful conservation and reuse efforts, and there’s much opportunity to cover our future growth locally.

Read The Study Here

Source: The Spectrum

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